gain or learn: A Strong Self, Free of Hurt, Resentment, and Regret

"Gain or learn"—either you gain something or you learn something. This popular saying does express a mindset of strength.

But the key is not a "positive attitude." It is that the self is strong enough that setbacks cannot wound or shake it.

The Key to Remaining Unhurt

The key to remaining unhurt is freedom from ego and attachment. Liezi said: "Those in harmony become wholly one with things, and nothing can harm them." When you are in harmony with things, nothing can hurt you. It is not that the outside world does not hurt you, but that your self has no "place that can be wounded"—not numbness, but clarity that sees all the way through.

Conversely, when the self is weak, any contact can wound—a comment, a rejection, a silence can all pierce through.

Resentment

Resentment is blame and aggression directed at others and oneself. Two layers lie beneath it:

The first is disappointment—you have expectations of others; those expectations go unmet, and resentment arises. Disappointment itself is not frightening. What is frightening is when disappointment becomes confirmation of a familiar relationship pattern: "Just as I thought"—"That's the kind of person you are," "I'll never meet anyone decent," "That's just how the world is."

The second is the repetition of toxicity in relationships—resentment is often not directed at the person before you, but is resentment toward someone from the past coming back to life in a new body. The present trigger is only the fuse; the explosives were planted long ago.

Regret

Regret is a form of self-attack. You look back at who you were then and think, "I should have done better"—behind this lies a lack of acceptance. You cannot accept that your past self could only manage so much, or that this was how fate had arranged things.

When the self is strong enough, there is no resentment or regret. This does not mean there is no sense of loss, but that you do not need resentment and regret to defend against that loss. A sense of loss is simply a sense of loss; you can let it be.

The Resilience of Libido

When an investment of libido comes to nothing, someone with a weak self suffers a severe setback—the libido withdraws like an ebbing tide, they dare not invest again, and they enter a blocked state of "not wanting to do anything."

Someone with a strong self does not suffer a severe setback when an investment of libido comes to nothing. If it comes to nothing, it comes to nothing; the libido does not withdraw and ebb away. There is ample resilience—not because they do not care, but because they do not need "success" to confirm that the direction of their investment was right.

The investment itself is meaningful; it needs no outcome to validate it.